The commercial truck tire market rebounded strongly in 2010, and Yokohama is planning several new announcements this year.


Yokohama senior vice president of sales and marketing, Dan King, noted that the biggest issue for Yokohama and the rest of the commercial tire industry in 2010 was fill rate.

"It started really in the middle of the year, and it's been very difficult for us to reach our increasing demand," he said. "Yokohama had huge increases in demand - actually higher than the industry's - and it's been difficult for us to supply to that demand."

He expects there will continue to be some issues with this in 2011. To help compensate, the company will allocate more production from Japan and will be expanding production at other plants.

King reported that the company has been testing a trailer and a drive super-single tire with various fleets. "We will probably be launching the trailer tire sometime in 2011, and following it up with the drive tire," he said.

"That's an interesting segment to watch," King said. "Some fleets truly believe it will save them overall costs because it reduces the weight on the vehicle and has tremendous fuel efficiency. Other fleets do not like the risk of having one tire go out causing more downtime. Others do not want the expense of the conversion and don't believe it's a payback. We're definitely watching it closely."

King noted that the long-haul segment of the market was bouncing back more strongly than some other parts of trucking, and that Yokohama has a new long haul steer tire called the 101ZL that has been tested and is ready to introduce in 2011. "We think the timing's good."

In addition, Yokohama has a new economy steer tire it's evaluating for 2011.

"We're in a great position and want to continue fortifying the Yokohama name in the marketplace," King said.